Strippers sue Washington State to prevent their identities from being released

Exotic dancers at a Washington strip club are suing to prevent officials from releasing their names and addresses due to a public records request. Because most strippers are required to have an 'entertainer’s license', their identities are on the record.

Two 'Jane Does' filed the complaint against Pierce County on
Tuesday, on behalf of about 70 dancers and managers at Dreamgirls
at Fox’s, as well as any former dancers. They are asking county
officials not to release copies of their business licenses ‒ and
thus real identities ‒ to a man who has filed a public records
request for that information.

Gilbert H. Levy, an attorney for the dancers, acknowledged that
the information can legally be released under the state’s Public
Records Act, but that the entertainers have free-speech, privacy
and safety interests in keeping the licenses and their true
identities confidential.

"It's a unique occupation and it's a controversial
occupation," Levy told the Associated Press. "Some
people like nude dancers, and other people for religious or for
other philosophical reasons don't. There's some stigma attached
to the occupation, and most dancers for personal privacy reasons
and safety reasons, don't want the customers to know who they are
outside of the club."

The request from David A. Van Vleet for copies of all adult
entertainment licenses on file for Dreamgirls at Fox's did not
list a reason for the filing. Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason.com
speculated that “it's entirely likely the person who wants
this information is a crazy stalker or an anti-sex nutjob. Maybe
both. Maybe merely a blackmailer or a 4chan-er. At any rate, it's
hard to imagine many non-nefarious reasons for requesting
personal information on a wide swath of individuals in a
sensitive job.”

One of the Jane Does said she has a distinctive name, and that
she feared her information could be used on the internet to find
out her other job, information on her young daughter and her
address and phone number, according to the News Tribune.

“I feel I could be harassed by Mr. Van Vleet or other people
with nefarious intentions, and that I could suffer the loss of my
other job and relationships because of the disclosure,” the
dancer said.

Reason.com, which opposes many occupational licenses because
“it's often based on little more than protectionism for those
already in an industry… [and] it further bloats the regulatory
state,” has come out against the need for adult
entertainment licenses.

“It can make people's private information a matter of
official record, and thus fair game for public records
requests,” Brown wrote. “In some industries, such as
those involving adult entertainment, you can see how this may get
a little touchy.”

Kelly Holsopple, a former stripper and the co-founder of the
Metropolitan Coalition Against Prostitution in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, went even further, outlining the prevalence of
stalking by customers at strip clubs in a 1998 research paper
entitled, ‘Stripclubs According to Strippers: Exposing Workplace
Sexual Violence’.

“Men associated with stripclubs repeatedly attempt to contact
the women against their wishes. Strippers are followed home and
stalked by stripclub customers,” she wrote. “Customers
telephone, write letters, send gifts, and follow the women around
against their wishes.”

“Women recount stories of catching customers following them
to fitness clubs, parks and lakes, day care centers, and even
lesbian bars. They describe times when customers have broken into
their homes and taken underwear, hairbrushes, and family
photographs,” Holsopple continued. “Women say that other
customers have used their jobs at the telephone company or within
the criminal justice system to target the women.”

Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson said she had not seen the
lawsuit, but that absent a court order, her office planned to
release the information to the requester next week.

“It’s not our job and should not be our role to interpret
what the requester’s intentions might be,” Anderson said.

That assessment was discomforting to David Ward, a women's rights
attorney. "The very fact that you know somebody has requested
this information if terrifying in and of itself," he told
KOMO News.

Anderson said that after determining the licenses were public
under state law, her office notified the 125 license-holders that
the information was about to be released, which prompted the
lawsuit. The licenses include stage and legal names, height,
weight, eye and hair color, date of birth, signature and a color
photo, the News Tribune reported.

“Given the nature of the work performed by these people, I
opted to give them a heads-up,” Anderson told the paper.

Last year, a man who was in jail at the time, Robert Hill
requested hundreds of documents about local dancers, KOMO News
reported. Hill claimed he was legally entitled to know what the
dancers look like and potentially where they live. In February
2013, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Ronald Culpepper
permanently blocked the inmate from receiving the license
information, according to the News Tribune.

Ward believes a loss of privacy ‒ even through public records ‒
has a chilling effect, and said it could lead to stalking or
worse. "There's no way to know when it's going to happen and
there's no way to know when it's stopped," he added.

Brown agreed. “There's just no reason these women's
identities should be a matter of public record in the first
place,” she wrote. “There's no reason city or county or
state governments need a stripper database.”

The lawsuit comes less than three weeks after Facebook said
it
will change its policy that required people to use their real
names – not aliases – on the social networking site, causing
major privacy concerns for many in the LGBTQ community, as well
as political activists and victims of domestic violence. When
making the about-face after
meeting with a group of well known drag queens, the company
also apologized to the community after hundreds of accounts were
blocked for using stage names on Facebook.